Saw 3D (2010)

Directed by Kevin Greutert [Other horror films: Saw VI (2009), Jessabelle (2014), Visions (2015), Jackals (2017), Saw X (2023)]

Boy, as a long-time Saw fan, I have a lot to say about this one, and I only hope I can keep my rambling to a minimum.

Saw 3D, also known under the title Saw: The Final Chapter, is quite a disappointing film. There’s plenty of reasons why, but I also want to be clear right now: I will be giving some spoilers to this movie in order to cover it to the best of my ability, so if you’ve not seen Saw 3D, do not read further.

Firstly, let’s discuss the 3D – it’s terrible. I know around this time, 3D movies were coming out like crickets on a quiet night, but just because it was a trend doesn’t mean Saw had to follow suit. The 3D added absolutely nothing to the movie, and though you could say it’s one of the film’s smaller sins – the story and structure and execution of twists far worse – it’s still emblematic of the problems Saw 3D has.

Let’s talk turkey, though, ‘turkey’ being my code-word for plot. Following the events of the last movie, Mark Hoffman is on the warpath, his prime target being Jill (who, if you didn’t know, attempted to kill Hoffman, and while it just ended up disfiguring him, you can tell he’s none-too-pleased). Jill then decides to go to the police, specifically Internal Affairs detective Matt Gibson (Chad Donella). Why Matt Gibson? I don’t really know, as he’s never been mentioned, let alone appeared, until this movie.

While Jill is trying to ensure her survival against an angry Hoffman, a self-help speaker (Sean Patrick Flanery), who has been amassing fame and wealth by speaking about his survival of one of Jigsaw’s traps, is placed in a new game. Like William Easton in Saw VI, he’s forced to go through a bunch of traps, attempting to help his friends and staff from grisly fates, and face the lies that brought him to where he is now.

In theory, that portion of the film should at least be suitable, but it’s really not. The sixth film had some really solid portions during the game, but here, it feels largely weak. There’s a portion where he has to talk a blindfolded friend over planks, so the friend doesn’t fall to his death. Tense, perhaps, but not particularly great. Sure, someone has their eyes and mouth at risk of spikes, but I didn’t feel a whole lot of care for anyone involved.

Perhaps the most interesting trap, at least in this section, was one in which a woman was tied down, and the key to unlock her was on a fishhook that’s in her stomach. Flanery’s character has to pull the fishing line from her mouth, doing God knows what type of internal damage, all while any speaking, or screaming, will ensure that the woman’s throat gets pierced by spikes. I’m not saying this is a great execution, but at least it’s something. The idea of having a fishhook pulled through your innards is not what I’d call a fun time. Some props, though, to that pulling-teeth section.

Perhaps because of the 3D nature, though, some of the movie feels really over-the-top. There’s a group of survivors from Saw traps (and we see some familiar faces), and as one woman recounts her survival story (of a trap previously unseen), it seems almost goofy. The trap with two men and the woman they’re both in a relationship with, set up in the middle of a busy city center, seemed far too ridiculous to feel real. Oh, and that dream sequence – I say again, dream sequence – of Jill’s, where she’s caught by Hoffman and killed by some silly train thing, was so fucking cringe boys.

However, the most over-the-top award goes to that junkyard trap. A bunch of racists are placed in a complicated trap. It looks painful – a man’s glued to a seat of a car, and has to pull forward, tearing the skin from his back in large chunks, to potentially free them all – but given the victims are racist, and the movie wants to show some carnage, it comes as absolutely no surprise that things go the way they go.

Onto perhaps the most important thing here, though, I need to speak about Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). Ever since the end of the first movie, and the fact that he wasn’t mentioned as dead in the follow-up film, I’ve been of the opinion that Gordon survived. I even thought it likely that he was blackmailed by John to help him out with some of the traps. I know others out there thought the same thing – I have no idea of the percentage of Saw fans who would proudly claim “I believe Gordon is alive,” but I can say that others thought people like me distasteful.

Well, as it turns out, Gordon did survive. That in itself isn’t a big spoiler, because the movie opens showing how he was crawling from the bathroom following the events of the first film, and how he cauterizes his stump (which looked painful as FUCK). The real spoilers of his character come later on, but I think they’re executed particularly poorly. It hurts most, because Gordon’s return was something I had been hoping for for many years, and they bring him back in an execution as shoddy at this? More than anything – the 3D, that stupid fucking dream sequence, the over-the-top junkyard trap – this pissed me off something awful.

I appreciated Costas Mandylor in Saw VI, but I have to say that he’s starting to feel a bit OP. He’s not John – he used inferior blades and knives in the past, and he doesn’t have the Godlike omniscience that John did, and yet he’s like Hannibal Lecter the way he massacres through people. Actually, I started wondering if he had some military training in the past, and though this might be a small thing, if they had mentioned that indeed, he was in the Special Forces for a stint, I would have found Hoffman’s role here more believable. That said, I did appreciate his plan to break into the police department – solid stuff.

Betsy Russell’s Jill here feels sort of weak, in comparison. She honestly only got a few moments to shine in the last film, but here, it’s like she’s completely out of her depth. I’ll admit that I found Chad Donella (Final Destination) amusing at times, though he seems a far cry from the threat posed by Peter Strahm. Sean Patrick Flanery (The Evil Within, Lasso, Kaw, Mongolian Death Worm) did fine, but his character struck me as somewhat pointless, truth be told.

The most exciting face for me to see, of course, is that of Cary Elwes (The Alphabet Killer, Hellgate, Psych:9), but I don’t really think they do justice with his character, which is a damn disappointment, given how long I’ve waited for this.

I’m not going to say that Saw 3D is a terrible movie, but I can say that I think it’s the first movie in the series that’s below average. It’s not an utter disaster, but given how great the first movie is, and how sequels generally did well to keep the standards high, this was just a major let-down, especially as a long-time fan of the series.

6/10